I take it all Back. Really.

[Mike Baker 2]

A while back i posted to a wooden mallet discussion. I am new to hand tool woodworking, and mentioned that most of the woodworkers I had seen tended to use the plastic headed mallets, and I had seldom seen them use wooden ones. I posited that mallet making might perhaps be a "beginner" thing, ie; a project for new guys to help one learn a bit, and that I was perfectly happy with my $5 white rubber mallet.
Whereupon the thread was inundated with gentlemen saying "No, perish the thought. I would not know what to do without my wooden mallet", or other words to that effect.
So, I had some cutoffs from a couple of guitar builds, and decided to build me a nice mallet. I used it cutting mortises and tenon this afternoon on my bench build. I am blown away at how efficient this thing is. There is power in every strike. The lightest of taps transfers a huge amount of force to the chisel, and thus the wood. I cut split tenon with it, and it was like going from a Yugo to a high performance sports car. Wonderful, and I'd just like to say, "I would not know what to do without my wooden mallet".

Below are pics. It is laminated, curly maple on the outside, black walnut in the center, and straight grained maple for the handle. 3 or 4 coats of wipe on poly took care of the finish.
Once again I have to say thank you for the knowledge on this forum.
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[Noah Magnuson]

Works good. Looks Good. Can't ask for more than that.

[Stanley Covington]

Very nice!

[steven c newman]

Looks great from here!

[Mike Baker 2]

Thank you, gentlemen.

[Nicholas Lawrence]

Much nicer than mine!

[George Conklin]

That looks really slick, Mike!

Kinda too nice to use. Well done, Sir.

[David Ragan]

Thanks for posting that MB2, I had wondered the same thing myself. Great project for me. How about a Rube Goldberg mallet?

[Jared Hendrix]

Nice Mallet! This was the first thing I made after my bench, and i wish i had made it before.

[Jim Koepke]

It is great when such a great looking tool can be made from scrap wood. You made a great job of it.

I posited that mallet making might perhaps be a "beginner" thing, ie; a project for new guys to help one learn a bit

There are a few projects that are great for beginners to help build skill, making a mallet is one of them. Others would be a pair of bench hooks, shooting board, saw benches and on up to a bench.

jtk

[Pat Barry]

I would have a huge problem with that mallet Mike - it looks too good to use ! Nice work

[Kees Heiden]

Nice!

Now go on, find yourself a lump of oak and mortice it for a handle. Just to make yourself a mallet which goes on maletting for ever when your laminated one has split apart. ;-)

[Daniel O'Connell]

Beautiful work!

I've been using a really crappy wooden mallet I bought in a box of tools at a flea market. Its an off the shelf hammer handle attached to a block of misshapen wood with screws...but it's much nicer than my rubber or deadblow mallets and that became clear almost immediately. The only thing I've done that improved things as much as that wooden mallet was moving to proper vises(I started out with a mechanics vise, a clamp, and a sort of bench hook thing)

[Dave Cullen]

There was a mallet swap a year or two ago on another forum where each participant sent another member a hand made mallet. The results were amazing. The variety of styles and materials for a simple and useful tool is staggering.

[Mike Baker 2]

Thanks again, guys.
On the woods used, I normally would not use flame maple for something like a mallet, but it was off cuts that pretty much would never be used for anything else, so......
Daniel, I almost bought an old beat up mallet for a buck at a local flea market before I built this one.
Kees, thanks. As far as the mallet splitting, if I joined the wood right, it should fail before the glue does. Although the glue was a couple of years old.